dick clinton, the eldest son, arrived at kencote at a quarter to eight, and went straight up to his room to dress. this young man—for, with his spare, upright frame, sleek head, and well-fitting clothes, he looked less than his thirty-four years—was as well served as his father, although he did not get his will by the same means; and the little wrongs of life, each of which the squire, as they came along, dealt with as "a most infernal nuisance," he took more equably. he had brought his own servant with him, but had no need of him for the time, for his evening clothes were laid out for him, his shirt, with studs in and a collar attached, was hung over the back of a chair in front of the piled-up fire, and he had only to slip out of one suit and into another as if he had been in the house all day instead of having just reached the end of a journey of over three hours. these things were all a matter of course to him. the warm bright room, red-curtained, and quiet from the deep stillness of the country, gave him no particular sensation of pleasure when he entered it, except that he was cold from his journey and there was a good fire; nor, consciously, did the fact that this was his home, which he liked better than any other place, although he was more often than not away from it. he was thinking, as he began immediately in his quick neat way to change his clothes, that there was no apparent sign of the frost yielding, and fighting off his annoyance—for he hated to feel annoyed—at the stoppage of the morrow's hunting. he had very much wanted to hunt on the morrow, more than he usually wanted anything.
and yet he was, though he hardly knew it, pleased to be at home, and in this room, which had been his ever since he had left the nursery. the little iron bedstead was the one on which he had slept as a boy; the flat tin bath, standing against a wall with the bath-mat hung over it, was only rather the worse for wear since those days; the worn carpet, now more worn, was the same; and the nondescript paper on the walls, which were hung with photographs of his "house" at eton, showing him amongst the rest in five stages, from the little fair-haired boy in his broad collar sitting cross-legged on the grass, to the young man with folded arms in a place of honour by his tutor. there were later cambridge groups too, exhibiting him as master of the drag, in the eighteenth-century dress of the true blue club, and in other conjunctures of pursuits and companions, but nothing to mark a later date than his university days, unless it were the big photographs in silver or tortoise-shell frames on the mantelpiece and writing-table. probably nothing had been added to the decoration of the room for a dozen years, only a few things for use—a larger wardrobe and dressing-table from another room in the house, a big easy-chair, a fur rug by the bed. the room contained everything he needed in such a room, and since he needed nothing there to please the eye, it had received nothing all these years, and would receive nothing until he should leave it for good, when he should be no longer the eldest son, but in his turn the head of the house.
he had nearly finished dressing when there was a knock at the door, and a voice, "are you there, dick? can we come in?"
his rather expressionless face changed a little, pleasantly. "yes, come along," he called out, and his young sisters came in in their fresh muslin frocks, their masses of fair hair tied back with big blue ribbons. they had that prim air of being dressed, which is different in the case of girls not quite grown up from that of their elder sisters. they were remarkably alike and remarkably pretty, and dick, who stood at the dressing-table in his shirt sleeves tying his tie, although he did not turn round to greet them, noticed their appearance with approval through the glass.
"well, twankies," he said affably, as they went up to the mantelpiece and stood one on either side of the fire, "what's the news with you?"
"we are to have a new preceptress," said joan, the elder, "vice the old starling, seconded for service elsewhere."
dick turned and stared at her. "old miss bird leaving!" he exclaimed. "surely not!"
"you can't be more surprised than we were," said nancy—the twins generally spoke alternately. "she broke it to us in floods of tears this afternoon. joan cried too."
"so did you," retorted joan. "you blubbered like a seal."
"and it did me credit," said nancy, accepting the charge with complete equanimity.
"what is she going for?" asked dick.
"she has to go and look after her sister, poor old thing!" said joan. "and she doesn't think she knows enough to take us on any further."
"we denied it hotly, to comfort her," continued nancy. "but it's quite true. we have the brains of the family, and are now going to leave childish things behind us. i wish you'd make your watch ring, dick."
dick pressed the spring of his repeater, and the twins listened to its tinkle in silence. nancy sighed when he put it into his pocket. "even that isn't the treat that it used to be," she said. "we are getting too old for these simple pleasures. joan is beginning to take an interest in dress, and i am often to be seen absorbed in a book. dick, shall you kiss miss bird when you say good-bye? there's nothing she would love better."
"when is she going?" asked dick, ignoring the question.
"in about a week," joan replied. "dick, i think you ought to kiss her, if you possibly can. you are the eldest, and nearer her heart than any of us. she told us so."
"i'll give you both a kiss and you can pass it on," said dick, with an arm round each. "come along down."
they went down to the morning-room, and on the stroke of eight dick led his mother into dinner, the squire following.
the twins settled themselves each in a corner of the big sofa in front of the fire. they usually read during the half-hour before they were summoned to dessert, but this evening they had something to talk about.
"i wonder what she'll be like," nancy began.
"if aunt emmeline chooses her i should think she would be all right," said joan.
nancy considered this. "yes," she said. "but she will have to be kept in her place. of course we have always been able to do exactly as we like with the old starling. joan, we must conserve our liberties."
"oh, i think we shall be able to do that," said joan. "we must remain calm and polite."
"and keep up our reputation for eccentricity," added nancy. then they both giggled.
"you know, joan, i think it's rather fun," nancy proceeded. "i shan't a bit mind learning things now. i should have hated it a year or two ago. but you can't deny that it is rather slow at home."
"that's why cicely ran away," said joan. "she simply couldn't stand it any longer. but it doesn't worry me like that. we have a pretty good time on the whole."
"yes, we see to that. but, of course, cicely was much older. and after all, she didn't run very far—only to london, to see walter and muriel. and she soon came back."
"she had to. i believe there was more in that than we knew about."
nancy looked up sharply. "do you? why?" she asked.
"oh, i don't know. i believe it had something to do with her engagement to jim. she was married pretty soon after, anyhow, and there was no talk of it at the time."
"i wonder if we could find out."
"what's the good? and it's over two years ago now. i wonder if dick would drive us over to mountfield to see the babies to-morrow. he won't be able to hunt."
"he won't want to see the babies. men are so silly in that way. they pretend they don't care for them."
"father doesn't. he's just as silly about them as we are."
"it isn't silliness in us. we are women, and we understand. if a man does like a baby it's just as a toy."
"all the same, i think it does father credit liking his grandchildren. i should hardly have expected it of him."
"he's getting softer in his old age. nancy, i wonder how mother persuaded him to let us have a really good governess. he'd think it quite absurd that girls should want to learn anything."
"my dear child, you could get anything you wanted out of father if you tackled him in the right way."
"only some things."
"anything, i said."
"i'll bet you four weeks' pocket-money that you couldn't get him to let us hunt."
"oh, well! that's part of his religion. 'i may be old-fashioned—i dare say i am—but to see a pack of women scampering about the country and riding over the hounds—eh, what? no, thank you!' i didn't mean i could make him become a roman catholic, or anything of that sort. but i'll bet you what you like i'll get him to let us have a pony."
"four shillings?"
"right."
"do you think you really can, nancy? it would be jolly."
"i don't see why he shouldn't. cicely always rode old tommy, and so did we till he died."
"only surreptitiously, and bare-backed. we should have to have habits and all that, now."
"mother would see to that. anyhow, i'll tackle him."
"how shall you manage it?"
"i shall think out a scheme."
"dick might help. nancy, i'll bet you eight weeks' pocket-money you can't get two ponies."
"i'll begin with one, and see how i get on. now i think i'll immerse myself in a book."
presently they were called into the dining-room and sat, one on each side of their father, cracking and peeling walnuts for him and eating grapes on their own account, demure and submissively responsive to his affectionate jocularity. "what big girls you're both getting!" he said. "and going to be turned into blue-stockings, eh, what! have to buy you a pair of spectacles each next time i go to bathgate." he laughed his big laugh, drank half a glass of port, and beamed on them. he thought they were the prettiest pair of young feminine creatures he had ever seen, and so little trouble too! it was a good thing for a man to have sons to carry on his name, but young girls were an attractive addition to a family, and to the pleasures of a big house. he had thought it rather ridiculous of his wife to present him with the twins fifteen years before, and seven years after his youngest son was born, but he had long since forgiven her, and would not now have been without them for anything.
when he and dick were left alone over their wine there was a short pause, and then he cleared his throat and began: "i want to talk to you about something, dick."
dick threw a glance at him and took a puff at his cigarette, but made no reply.
the squire seemed a little nervous, which was not usual with him. "of course i don't want to interfere with you in any way," he said. "i've always given you a pretty free hand, even with the property, and all that sort of thing. i've consulted you, and you've had your way sometimes when we've differed. that's all right. it will belong to you some day, and you're—what?—thirty-four now."
"yes," said dick. "thirty-four. time to think of settling down, eh?"
the squire brightened. "yes, that's just it," he said. "time to think of settling down. you've had enough soldiering—much more than i had. i never expected you would stick to it so long."
"i don't want to leave the service yet," said dick calmly. "i'm down here pretty often—almost all my leave."
"yes, yes, i know," said the squire. "but if—if—— well, look here, dick—no use beating about the bush—why can't you get married?"
dick smiled. "it wouldn't be a bad scheme," he said.
the squire was pleased. he was getting on splendidly. "you feel that," he said. "well, i haven't liked to say anything, but it's been on my mind for a long time." he then recapitulated the reasons why he thought dick should marry, as he had enunciated them to mrs. clinton—his position as eldest son and heir to a fine property, his advancing age, the inadvisability of looking to melbury park as the cradle for a successor to the emoluments and amenities of kencote, or of leaving it to humphrey, the second son, to provide an heir. "the fact is, you ought to do it for your own sake," he wound up, "as well as for the sake of the place."
"whom do you want me to marry?" asked dick, with a shade of flippancy.
"oh, well, i'd leave that to you," the squire conceded handsomely. "you've a lot to offer. i should think you could pretty well take your pick—must have had plenty of opportunities all these years. you needn't look for money, though it's always useful. any nice girl of good birth—of course you wouldn't want to marry one who wasn't. good heavens! there must be a score of them presented every year, and you have been about london now for ten or twelve years. do you mean to say you haven't got one in your mind?"
"haven't you?" asked dick.
"well, if you like to consult me, why not grace ettien? old humphrey meadshire would be delighted. she is his favourite granddaughter, and i'm sure he would like to see her married before he goes."
"grace is a charming girl," replied dick. "but i don't want to marry my cousin."
"cousin! my dear fellow, old humphrey and your grandfather were first cousins. you're surely not going to let that stand in the way."
"i've known her ever since she was a baby. she's a baby now. it would be like marrying one of the twankies."
the squire began to get fussed. "you're talking nonsense, dick," he said. "she must be at least twenty-one. the fact is you have left it so long that an ordinary girl of a marriageable age seems a child to you. you'll be taking up with a widow next."
there was an appreciable pause before dick asked, "well, should you object so much to that?"
"of course i should," said the squire, "—for you. i shouldn't mind in the case of humphrey, if she wasn't too old, and had enough money for the pair of them. i'm not going to pay any more of his debts. i'm sick of it."
dick allowed the conversation to travel down this byroad for a time, and when the squire brought it back to the original track, said, "well, i'll think over what you say. but i don't know that i should care, now, about marrying a young girl."
the squire turned this over in his mind, looking down on his plate, and his brows came together. "what do you mean?" he asked shortly. "you wouldn't want to marry an old woman."
dick took his cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it.
"when i marry," he said decisively, "it will probably be a woman of nearer thirty than twenty."
the squire made the best of it. "oh, well—as long as she's not over thirty," he said. "girls don't marry so young as they used to. but—well, you must think of an heir, dick."
dick made no reply to this, and the conversation ended.
